Dental Content For Higher SEO Rankings

Google is a tough beast to stay abreast of and achieve top rankings for your dental website. But content is one of the missing links to achieving those high rankings for your services like Invisalign, teeth whitening, dental implants, dentures, wisdom teeth removal, and more.

I’m fortunate enough to have a circle of peers that are among the top local SEO professionals in the country, if not the world. That’s no joke! To be able to have a chat with them to see what’s going on in the google landscape is priceless for my firm, and invaluable for our dental clients.

Produce High Quality Dental Content

What I’ve known for a while now, but recently confirmed it with my peers is the importance of creating original, high value content for all of your pages. Writing this content for the benefit of your visitors not google. Writing long-form content, especially when you’re initially trying to rank high, is more effective than content that’s light on word count.

In regards of length, it has been recommended 1,500 to 3,000 word posts that have more visual elements to them. These include images and video positioned throughout the content that are helpful to your visitors.

The reason images and video are important is because they dramatically increase the length of time a visitor stays on your webpage, and decreases the likelihood of a person leaving your page quickly. If someone goes to your site and only browses for 30 seconds before leaving, and this occurs often, it means you might have a high bounce rate. Long form content that is broken up with visuals, headers, and bullet points will draw in your prospects.

What Is Content Marketing?

When you think about it, your dental website is a marketing tool. The number one goal of your website is to get the visitor to pick up the phone and call your practice. With that being said, it’s the content on your website that can entice someone to call. That is why we refer to it as content marketing for dentists.

There is a strategy to every piece of content you have on your website. It’s thought out, and when the piece is done, there are critical steps to promote your content for maximum results. That’s exactly what we do here!

Get Rid Of Your Duplicate Content

I’ve been telling dentists for the past few years about the importance in having original (not copied anywhere on the Internet). Unfortunately, that’s not the case with many of the dentists who have switched companies and come over to our firm. Time and time again, I see cookie-cutter, duplicate content, that is being used on hundreds, if not thousands of other websites these dental marketing companies use when they build the dentist a website.

When a company offers content during the design process make sure to ask them if it is original or content they use on all of their clients websites.

Choose Your Dental Keywords Wisely

So this is where creating valuable content (and SEO) gets exciting!

You see…if you have certain dental procedures you want to attract more patients for, you implement the strategy discussed in this article. Create valuable content for each of your services like Invisalign, Teeth Whitening, Dental Implants, Cosmetic Dentistry, Sedation Dentistry and more. Think of each service as dental keyword phrases.

I’m not talking about the cookie-cutter content on over 98% of all dental websites. I’m referring to original content that answers all the questions in your visitors mind, so they feel confident to pick up the phone right then and there and schedule an appointment with your practice and not your competitor down the street.

Another plus for long content is the ability to throw in a few other keyword phrases (related services), and inter-link them to the related content pages, and eventually rank for the other services. This type of strategy I refer to as creating an “authority website”, and google rewards these types of sites with high rankings for many terms

FAQ Section Of Your Content

One approach to creating excellent dental copy is to put together the top 5 questions you get from patients when discussing the topic. So for example orthodontics. One question is “Braces vs Invisalign?“. Or, “Porcelain Veneers vs Crowns?”

When you can answer these top questions for your web visitor, you are helping them make the decision to call your practice and become a new patient. This is very powerful when it comes to new patient attraction strategies that can dramatically increase your revenues.

Invest in SEO

Some content marketing companies think that they can achieve a high ranking simply from organic linking and traffic, and discard the need to use paid promotion as well. But…you really need both to get the best results.

Whether you are doing press releases, using ads on high-authority websites, or hiring an outside firm to handle your SEO, realize that all of these efforts are an investment in your practice. There is only so far you can get with organic. Paid promotion has great potential to spread your practices message and help you reach more potential patients.

Achieve Higher Rankings In Google web I know, after talking to hundreds of dentists, SEO can seem confusing and frustrating, but these approaches been proven to help with ranking. By implementing them, you’ll have a better chance at reaching more new patients, and getting them in your office for their first appointment.

Quality Over Quantity

Here’s what makes creating this long-form content challenging. You don’t want any fluff. You want pure value for the reader. This is why it takes several hours to create, so you don’t get foggy in the brain and start throwing in fluff. You’ve got to step away after 800 words at the most. I usually come back to a piece of content 5 or more times before the first draft is finished.

Google Says So

The theory that long-form content benefits search engine optimization (SEO) is corroborated by a hint that’s been dropped on the Google Webmasters Central Blog. Pandu Nayak, technical staff member at Google and creator of the Panda algorithm update, posted the following:

Users often turn to Google to answer a quick question, but research suggests that up to 10% of users’ daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic. That’s why today we’re introducing new search results to help users find in-depth articles.

Long Form Content Pros and Cons

Pros:

Google has a dedicated ranking mechanism for long articles.

Keeps audience on site longer, increases engagement, and is a ranking factor for google.

The number one con is what I hear from dentists. And I come back with it is still a must for the visitor who is in “research mode” and for google to rank you higher.

And…that is why I encourage content pages to have images, videos, subheads, bullet points and smaller paragraphs, so it’s easier to consume. Look at what one of the top SEO expert Jakob Nielsen says…

Strategize Your Dental Content

You’ve got to put thought into every piece of content you put out there. It is time-consuming, and can be stressful, as each piece needs to be formatted for the visitor, google and for conversions (phone calls or form submissions).

Set up a content schedule and commit to it. Aim for a minimum of one new piece per month. Shoot for 1200-2,000 words; 3-5 images and a video.

Do You Want Us To Create High-Converting Dental Content?

In marketing, we refer to a potential patient from the Internet as a “lead”. As I’ve mentioned many times, the number one goal of any website, including dental sites is getting the lead. That means either a phone call, or a form fill.

Creating lead-generating dental content is critical to the success of your website. If you have cookie-cutter content that one of the big firms created for all of their dental clients you will struggle to get a good ROI with your website.